A Merhog's Tale

Origins

Sonic shifted anxiously as he stood outside the room that Emma Nets now slept in. It had been three days since she had been released from the hospital and had come to live with Chuck and Sonic.

Disgusted with his son's behaviour, Nigel forced Elias to work off his debt to the old woman by working at her antique store as well as selling his precious jet ski. It was a dark, stormy day so Sonic couldn't leave the house because of the rain.

Sonic had been meaning to ask her about the old picture in the locket but he didn't know if he'd be raking up any bad memories. Just as he was about to leave, a pair of suddenly grabbed his shoulders and he let out a yelp.

He quickly turned around and glared when he saw Tails, Amy and Knuckles laughing at his expense.

"What are you guys doing here?" He hissed.

"We've got nothing better to do so we thought you'd wanna go to Pistris Island." Amy smiled.

"Thanks, but I've stuff to do." He replied.

"Really, like what?" Tails asked.

"I-"

"He wants to ask me some questions." A voice suddenly chuckled. The four teens let out a scream when they noticed Emma standing in the doorway, smiling sweetly at them.

"Geez lady, are you trying to kill us?!" Knuckles glared, only for Amy to elbow him in the ribs.

"Sorry Emma, we'll get out of your hair." Sonic said and tried to usher his friends out the house.

"No sense Sonic, how about you get some warm drinks and I'll tell you all a story."...

******

Sally sighed as she walked around their cold, seemingly empty mansion.

She wanted to go out with her friends but because of her involvement with the incident involving Emma Nets' boat their father decided to ground her as well. He knew that Elias was really the only one who had done anything wrong but he couldn't be too sure.

She didn't really mind getting ground; it was better than what her brother got. Her brother wasn't too happy about working at Emma's store and was even more upset and angry when he heard about Dad selling his jet ski.

As she walked back to her room she passed by the small library they had and stopped. Inside, she saw Elias with his read in a book, along with a few other open books around him, and the laptop was on next to him.

He didn't seem to notice his sister as he flipped through the book and typed on the laptop.

"What are you doing?" She suddenly asked, causing him to jump. In that time Sally snatched the book from him to see what he was looking at and she sighed when she realised that it was a book of sea creatures.

"This again?" She asked as he took the boat back.

"There's something down there Sally, and I'm going to find it." He glared.

"Elias, it was dark and we were both low on oxygen, for all we know it could of been a dolphin." She tried to reason, only for her brother to hand her a rough sketch of the tail they had saw that he had drawn.

"Does that look like a dolphin tail?"

Sally didn't say anything and headed off to her room...

******

Sonic sighed as he and his friends snuggled under a large blanket on the couch with mugs of hot chocolate in their hands. Emma was sat at in an armchair across from them, caressing the locket with her thumb.